Dr N Balakumar

Chapterisation is very important in any research work. Because, the research work should have a logical flow that will make the reader of your project work happy and comfortable – your examiner, company that gives you project work, future researchers and more importantly your future employers.

A logically arranged project work depicts your clarity and confidence in terms of selection of topic, research methodology and recommendations that are key to any research.

For easy understanding, let us approach this issue conceptually, in a different way. First let us try to arrive at the broad chapters.

Any research work, irrespective of the subject matter, needs to have an Introduction Chapter and Concluding Chapter.

What comes in between?

Any empirical research work, especially in management research needs to depend on either primary or secondary data. Thus, we have a Chapter on Data Base. Now, you have a data base. But how will you analyse the data? Your Research Methodology Chapter will explain that.

Your research skill set is a function of your Review of Literature Chapter. This Chapter will indirectly inform the readers of your project report, how much home work you have done to execute this research work. It will display the limitations of earlier works, while recording prior work that will lead to improve your research work since you will make an attempt to fill the research gaps that are found in earlier works. Also, it will help you to avoid executing a similar or same kind of work that yields no value in the academic or practical arena.

Now, we have the key chapters Introduction, Conclusion, Data Base, Methodology and Review of Literature. These are the key Chapters that form basis of any research work that are usually arranged in the following order:

Introduction
Review of Literature
Data Base
Methodology
Conclusion

However, depending upon your scope of work you may add more chapters in consultation with your project guide.